Something's Gone Wrong
by siriuswriter
Summary: With summer coming on, more and more writers are composing those... what are they called again? Fan-chics? At any rate, our staff and students at Hogwarts inevitably undergo some Changes at this time, and this Meeting to evaluate them is worse than ever.


They were seated at a circular table in The Great Hall, which had all its candles lit, and seemed unusually bright for such a somber occasion. Indeed, the candle-to-people ratio seemed to be bothering a few of the participants, a few of whom would turn around in their chairs from time to time to narrow their eyes at the candelabra dangling from the bewitched ceiling, which was showing a late evening vista. Clouds covered the already setting sun, and a few stars were beginning to pop out. It was an idealistic setting for a pair of lovers to set out on a secret tryst, or the first spells of an epic battle to be shot across a graveyard. Perhaps, even, the ideal conditions for just lying in the grass and staring up at the sky, for a Chosen One to ponder the fate of the Universe.

This was not, in fact, the true reality of the weather outside Hogwarts. It was early morning, about six thirty or so. The House Elves of Hogwarts, with their specially engraved badges would soon be setting out to the dormitories and common rooms of each house to light fires and awaken any fifth or seventh year student who had tried to stay up all night cramming for their O.W.L.S or N.E.W.T.S, resepectively. It was that time of year, you see. Early to late June. I can't tell you specifically. Ministry orders, and all that.

All across the world, Muggle schools were beginning to let out. Teenaged girls were rushing to their computer monitors and keyboards and typing… _things_.

And that, really, was why the meeting was being held. I was being instructed to write it all down, naturally. As Muggle Studies Professor, I do have this, well, link to your world that allows me to communicate to you all quite directly. I even have my own computer monitor and keyboard, although I do think I use mine a little more responsibly. However.

So they (or rather, we) were seated around the circular table in The Great Hall. The manner in which the Ceiling was behaving was a sign that it was already beginning – The Change.

Fortunately, as I am not named in any of the Books, I am not Changed at all. For sure, some of you attempt to mess with my character, mind, body, and other things that shall remain unnamed here, but I assure you, it's the name that counts. And you don't have it. So there.

The others… well, they don't have it so fortunately. Summer is the worst time, naturally. Your minds aren't taken up by the necessary distractions of schoolwork. Honestly, why else do you think we give so much? Do you think we give busy work because we think it helps you _learn_? Rubbish. We know it keeps you from writing your ridiculous Changing… whatever they ares. Fan-chics? Hic-lics?

Well, I'm not going to beg you to stop writing them; you're not going to. I've been instructed to take down what happened at the Meeting that year. It was especially bad that year.

Professor Trelawney, bless her heart, is always in charge. It should be obvious as to why. She's the one person everyone manages to get right, so she ends up the least Changed around here.

She called the Meeting to order by banging her sherry glass on the table. "Order! Or-_der_, I say!" She took a sip from her sherry glass, found it was empty, and poured a bit from the cooking sherry bottle that was near her drinking – sorry, wand – arm. There was a crate of them under her chair. Contributions of _your_ lot, I might say.

Unfortunately, the crowd around the table was the least likely bunch of people who were going to "Order" in the full of Hogwarts history, discounting the time old "look at me I can smile and that's about it" Gilderoy Lockheart brought those Cornish Pixies to class. I really do think that Barnabas the Barmy's balleting trolls would have been a more cooperating bunch.

"Oh _**come on**_!!!" said one voice finally, quite loudly from the right of the table. I caught myself before I let out an audible groan.

Harry Potter's appearance had changed considerably this go-round. His hair, always jet-black, had grown considerably straighter, and much longer, especially his bangs. The hung in his eyes, and he flicked them to the side with a gesture that suggested boredom, agitation, and a heavy feeling that he was just too far above this petty business. His scar had become considerably wider and redder than was fair for a sixteen-year old scar to be, and had a way of showing through his too-long bangs, which had immediately moved back over hid foreheas and into his eyes after the head-flick.

"You people don't know _anything_ about _pain_ or _suffering_ or _what_ it's like to be…" here, Harry trailed off, and looked around the room, seemingly for inspiration as to what we did not know what is was to be like.

The table fell into a hushed quiet for a moment, and then Harry spoke again. "&& the light is too painful for my eyes :so who fckin cares about the poor chosen boy anymore/ _&&nobody&&nobody_"

Professor Trelawney set down her sherry glass. "I'm sorry dear boy, what did you just say?"

Hermione spoke, "Can't you see?! He's _pining_ to let out his inner emotions, but nobody understands him!!"

Harry glared at her. Then slowly rose his middle finger in her direction.

"I'm sorry, did you just write the word, 'rose?'" The voice of Draco Malfoy penetrated the silence that followed as Professor Trelawney hurriedly took a gulp of sherry at the shock of seeing such a rude gesture.

Knew I shouldn't have used that word in this Meeting. Damn homophones.

"Roses are red,

Violets are blue…"

He had already begun.

"Sugar is sweet…"

But suddenly, a great change came over Draco, whose face began to twitch violently as he lept from his chair to the table, ripping off his shirt.

"… and _I am a SEX GOD_!!!!"

Draco began to strut on the table, flexing his muscles and occasionally running a hand through his now platinum blond hair. Then, just as suddenly, his face began to twitch again, and he let out a cry.

"FATHER!!! NO!!! DON'T BEAT ME!!!!"

He crumpled to the table into a fetal position, his shirt still off, still twitching.

"Perhaps he would like some sherry?" Professor Trelawney whispered.

I sighed. This too shall pass… this too shall pass…

"Can I just say, please," said a rather snarky voice from one of the chairs, "that I want to get this over as soon as possible. In case you didn't know, leather is a bit itchy if you're not wearing anything under it."

Leave it to Severus to steal the show from a sexy and romantic seventeen year old kid with an iffy past who has a case of multiple personality syndrome.

"Like you know _anything_ about_ leather_," Harry said from his chair.

"Perhaps you'd like me to demonstrate, flobberworm?" Severus answered snippily.

Not good. Not. Good. At all. I know what you lot do to Severus, and if this was what I thought it was…

But Severus was already on the table.

I am blinded forever. My mental imagery is gone. Please, someone, curse my eyes out. Conjuctivitus Curse, that would do nicely. Any time now.

If you've never seen a man who usually spends his time in all black, in a dungeon, no where near the sun, with greasy black hair, a huge hooked nose, who has no concept of personal hygiene, suddenly dressed up in a complete S&M ensemble…

I dunno, maybe I should send you a picture. Perhaps you'd stop writing?

I doubt it though.

Let me just say that the bare white ches,t of Severus Snape shone like one of your electric lightbulbs in the dim light that the candles gave off. Only the leather black "X" across his chest gave us any sort of relief at all from the blinding glare. Harry Potter declined a head flick to let his bangs slide into his eyes to shield the reflection off of the goblet of firewhiskey sitting in front of him.

"[Insert random British slang here!" Ronald Weasley said in awe, his first spoken contribution to the Meeting. So far, he had been making a lot of scared faces and doing a lot of almost inaudible whimpering. He seemed to know that what he had said hadn't come out right, and so he screwed his face up in concentration, beginning again. "Wicked… Bloody… no."

Hermione tapped him on the shoulder. "Ron-_ald_. It's bloody hell. Honestly. Don't you _read_?"

"Do you know that I love you?" Ron answered in a genuinely interested tone.

Draco Malfoy twitched, still in a fetal position in the middle of the table, muttering, "… roses… blue… twitchFather… mark…twitch I'm too sexy for Milan, New York, and Japan…" Here, he tried to raise his left arm to swipe it through his hair, but stared incredulously at something invisible on his forearm. "FATHER!! I didn't want to do it! You made me! I just wanted to be _just like yo-hoo-hooo_!!!!I just wanted you to love me-hee-hee!!! twitch … I thought you might enjoy the evening broom ride, Mary-Sue… twitch Too sexy for my cat, poor pussy, poor pussy cat… "

Meanwhile, Severus Snape was standing above Draco, trying to demonstrate his skills with the whip that had suddenly appeared in his wand arm.

He didn't have any. But the crack that his whip made woke up the dozing Dumbledore who was seating next to Sybill Trelawney. He blearily blinked his eyes a couple of times, taking in the scene while stroking his beard with his long fingernails. Harry Potter was now trying to cut himself with a splinter that he had managed to get off his wand.

"&&the world is too much for me / it is so so cruel / && so i must say goodbye love / goodbye / goodbye love / goodbye / just had to say goodbye love / goodbyeeee…"

"Are you singing RENT lyrics?!" I shrieked. What you lot do to that boy…

"So what," Harry shouted. "It's not like anyone _cares_."

"But we _do_ care, dear boy," Professor Trelawney said, taking off her thick glasses to polish them with one of her shawls. "What _is_ that abominable stench? Are you drinking firewhiskey? Dear me, here, pass that over and I'll fill you up with some nice sherry."

"I don't _want_ sherry," Harry responded. "I _want_…" but whnt Harry wanted was soon forgotten, because Dumbledore, seemingly having taken in the situation, stood up from his chair and bellowed,

"_**YOU… SHALL NOT… PASS**_!!!!"

There was a moment of silence.

"The spiders want me to tap dance. But I don't want to tap dance, Harry. I just don't want to tap dance!" Ron whispered.

"I think you need some psychiatric help," Dumbledore said matter-of-factly, settling down in his chair again.

"No, _I'm_ the one who needs the psychiatric help, doesn't anyone _get_ that?!" Snape now had a few silver chains dangling from his leather belt. And had amateurly tied his greasy hair up in a ponytail. Even Draco had retreated to his chair, although he was still twitching a bit, and muttering incomprehensible words.

The snap of his whip was inaudible under the sound of the door of the Great Hall opening. A strikingly handsome boy dressed in Slytherin robes peeked in, and, upon seeing the pandemonium, his face seemingly strengthened his resolve. He strode toward the round table and placed his book bag on it between Harry and Ron.

"Look," he began. "I don't want to turn into one of you freaks. I just came here to say one thing. One thing, got it?" He looked around at all of us severely.

Ron pulled a frightened face.

"I'm Blaise Zabini. I'm black. Of African descent. Thank you." And with that profound statement, he picked up his book bag, and stalked out of the Hall.

"You don't know what it's _like_ to be _black_!! Harry shouted after him.

No one seemed to pay much attention to Harry's proclamation of Blaise not being able to feel his own "blackness." In fact, they seemed much more interested in maintaining their own delusions, and so…

…everything returned to chaos.

Until, that is, there was a loud bang at the doors of the Great Hall.

Then everyone sat down calmly in their chairs, and looked to Dumbledore, who promptly stood up, and cried, "_**YOU… SHALL NOT…**_!!!"

But what had worked so well in rehearsal did nothing at all in performance, for the bang again sounded at the Great Hall's doors.

Dumbledore calmly sat down in his chair and conjured a package of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, beginning to eat them. I marked this down as an irregularity. Dumbledore would never willingly consume those things.

Another bang at the door; and then, a cry of anger mixed with sadness.

"You've crushed it Lucius! You've crushed the cloud!"

"They don't know what it's _like_ to be a _cloud_," Harry mumbled rebelliously, but Professor Trelawney took a bottle of cooking sherry from the crate under her chair and thwaped him over the head with it. An approving crack came from Snape's whip, and he rustled his chains a few times.

There were more murmurs of anger, and then the banging stopped, replaced by a dozen or so male voices, chanting in unison. We couldn't quite make out what they were saying, although Professor Trelawney claimed that they were crying, "Drink a beer, for we cheer, for our rugged boutonniere!"

Personally, I thought that had a bit to do with her own alcohol preoccupation. However.

There was a pop, and our attention was distracted from the chanting by a large presence looming on the table.

"Look. Just let me in. Please. I'll do anything. Just let me in before they get here," Voldemort was down on his knees, his red eyes leaking tears onto… a fluffy white shirt and tight black breeches?

Professor Trelawney offered him her glass of sherry, but Voldemort declined, gesturing to his already red eyes.

Dumbledore stood up and began, "Now, Tom, have you been running around with those…?" but was interrupted mid-sentence by an even bigger bang than before.

A large float was rolling into the Great Hall, and upon it were eight or nine men, dressed in white fluffy shirts and tight black breeches, pink bandannas wound around theie heads. The float was decorated with a skull; a huge rainbow exited its mouth. A damaged cloud lay atop the skull, like a crown. The Dark Mark.

They were shouting, "We're here! We're queer! And he's our buccaneer!!"

Voldemort shivered.

"Please! Please! I'll do anything! Please, Albus, take me in! Please!!! I beg of you!!!"

"We're here! We're queer! And he's our buccaneer!!!"

Dumbledore closed his eyes for a moment, then smiled. "Horcruxes."

Voldemort would have paled if he could have. "Never heard of them."

Dumbledore shouted, "Lads?"

"We're here! We're queer! And he's our buccaneer!"

"All right! All right!!!" Voldemort crouched, and immediately took his wand to his head, drawing out a memory, and the put the wand to Dumbledore's, putting the memory in his.

Dumbledore grinned, and shouted, "_**YOU… SHALL NOT…**_!!!"

But Snape had approached the Death Eaters. "Look, lads. He's not coming. But I'd be glad to come along. I think you'd find my wand very useful…" He grinned sardonically.

There were shouts of "Aye!" and "Avast!" and the float was off, out of the Great Hall.

Voldemort sat still in his crouching position for a moment, then whispered. "You were right, Albus. There truly _are_ fates worse than death."

The room was overcome with silence again, and I thought the Meeting over. I prepared to wrap up my notes, reminding myself to write a strongly worded letter to your lot for all this trouble, when I heard a small voice saying.

"Why couldn't we just follow the butterflies?"

You really ought to think about the consequences of your actions.

ooooo

_A/N : This is dedicated to my dear friend Melinda, who was patient enough to listen to my ramblings as I created this, and compliant enough to laugh at the funny parts. _


End file.
